


Twice and Future

by misura



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: M/M, Timey-Wimey, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:28:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22632685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: Bran dreams.
Relationships: Jojen Reed/Bran Stark
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Twice and Future

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NRGburst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NRGburst/gifts).



His father, sitting by his bedside, swallowing before he says, "Howland Reed was a good man. A loyal man," and Bran thinks, _liar,_ even though that's not true, is it, because all of the Seven Kingdoms know that Lord Eddard Stark is a man of honor and integrity.

(There's a three-eyed raven, sitting in the windowsill and he feels his legs under the blankets, whole and healthy, and he wriggles his toes and realizes he's forgotten how that feels, will have forgotten again by the time he wakes up.)

"His son - if it makes you happy, then that's good enough for me," his father says. "We worship the Old Gods here, you know that. If a man prefers the company of other men, we do not hold it against him."

"And I'm not the heir," Bran says.

His father chuckles and ruffles his hair. "And you're not the heir, aye."

_I will be,_ Bran thinks. _They'll all die, and I will be the heir, and I won't want it, except that I will._

"So if anyone gives you any trouble, remember your brothers, will you?" his father says.

"I have sisters, too," Bran says.

"Aye, but Arya's got your mother's temper. Best not poke the bear, eh?" His father grins.

_Mother's sigil is a salmon and ours is a wolf. The bear belongs to House Mormont, and their last heir died in the Long Night,_ Bran thinks. What he says is, "No. Of course not."

"Good lad," his father says. "Hodor."

Bran wakes.

"You stay away from us, do you hear me?" Meera says, clutching her bow as if that's going to help her.

_It's a wolf. It won't understand human speech,_ Bran thinks, but then he feels his tongue loll out of his mouth, hears himself whuff a bit, and he understands.

"Meera," Jojen says, sounding like but not entirely like himself. "Don't." (The word Bran's looking for, he realizes, is _younger_.)

_When am I?_ he asks, wants to ask; he feels the words taking shape in his mind, but his wolf's mouth cannot make the sounds. _Why am I here?_

(He knows why; the scent is all around the hut, painfully obvious to anyone with a nose, warning them to stay away, run, don't linger here to build a fire and spend a night - danger, danger, mine, mine.)

( _That's why, then_ , he thinks: he's here to save Jojen and Meera's lives, so that they can save his.)

"What do you mean, 'don't'?" Meera asks, voice sharp with fear.

"It's - it's all right," Jojen says, struggling to get back on his feet from where he's fallen down. "It's Bran."

Meera looks at Bran like she wants to shoot him.

_I won't take him away from you,_ Bran wants to say. It's only half a lie. _You can't protect him forever._ Truer, and less kind. _He makes his own choices._

"Here, boy. Bran." Jojen holds out his hand, whistling like Bran is a hound rather than a wolf.

Bran goes anyway, because he knows what sisters can be like, licking Jojen's hand and then, as Jojen huddles down, Jojen's face.

Meera makes some sounds indicating disgust, and Jojen laughs, and Bran wags his tail before he remembers why he's here, and now, and he growls instead, showing teeth.

"I think he wants us to leave," Jojen says.

"Hodor," Meera says.

Bran wakes.

"Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, eh?" Jojen says, lounging in the only chair in the room that looks halfway comfortable. ( _This is wrong,_ Bran thinks, though he cannot say why the Iron Throne should not be there, or what kind of throne he ought to be sitting on instead.)

"Six," Bran hears himself say.

Jojen smiles at him, and says, "Sisters, eh?" and Bran smiles back, and doesn't say that Sansa more than earned her title and the power she now holds, the respect men and women alike pay her now.

"Six is more than enough."

Jojen groans. "You can say that again. Sometimes I think you plan on working me to death."

"You are my Hand," Bran hears himself say. "It comes with the job - and the pin."

"Your Hand? Is that all?" Jojen gives him a wounded look. There's something different, something - Bran does not want to say 'wrong', because Jojen _lives_ (and why would he not, Bran almost wonders, before he remembers not to, to let the vision happen instead, to watch rather than act).

Bran feels himself smile.

"You tease," Jojen says, sounding fond.

"I am the Three-Eyed Raven," Bran hears himself say. "I do not tease."

Jojen snorts. "Come off of it. It's just us here. You don't need to keep up the act. I know you, remember?"

_I remember the day you died,_ Bran thinks, even though he doesn't, he thinks. "Should I?"

Jojen gives him a look. "Are you feeling all right? You don't quite sound like yourself."

_I'm not,_ Bran thinks, and yet, how could he be anyone else? _I am the Three-Eyed Raven,_ he told Jojen, but what does that even mean? How can he be the very - thing? person? who's been calling him in his dreams, guiding him?

"I'm fine," he hears himself say. "You worry too much."

"That's not what you said yesterday," Jojen says, and Bran thinks, _yesterday we -_ and realizes he's forgotten. The past stretches out behind him and in front of him and all around him, day after day, all blurring together, all the may-have-been's and maybes and possiblies and never-evers, and then Jojen kisses him and Bran returns to where he is, to the now and here, and he does not wake.

("Let him sleep, eh?" Osha tells Hodor, who shrugs and goes back to work, gathering firewood and edible plants, and somewhere closeby, Meera listens to Jojen's even breathing and smiles.)


End file.
